Journal of a Living Lady #411

Nancy White Kelly

It would have been a good week if Buddy didn’t have a cold and we didn’t have this peculiar smell in our house. Buddy is like many husbands in that when he is sick he behaves worse than a toddler. He is just plain grumpy and whiney. I have to put up with him for seven days while he blows and blows, coughs and coughs, and clears his throat with the most annoying volume.

Admittedly, I would not make a good nurse as I am unsympathetic to complainers. Good grief! It is only a cold. It’s not terminal. Get a life.

I don’t care for a lot of doting when I am sick so what kind of man did I marry? The most sympathetic husband in the world who can’t do enough for me no matter how minor the illness. If I have a rash, he dabs it with medicine three times a day. If my temperature is even a smidgen above 98.6, he brings me wet, cold rags, fixes canned chicken soup for breakfast and insists I see a doctor. Not a general practitioner. It needs to be a pulmonary specialist.

Buddy and I are living testimony to the fact that opposites attract. He is a Mississippi country boy and I am a highly educated Jill of all trades. He brags about being the only boy in fifth grade who had a driver’s license. At last count, I held six licenses of some type.

Thankfully we share a sense of humor though I am Abbott and he is Costello. You younger readers would better understand the analogy with living people like Jim Carey and Betty White.

Back to the Buddy and that smell. For once I found one thing about his cold for which to be grateful. He didn’t seem to notice that obnoxious smell.

This strange odor permeated our house for days. I burned candles, opened doors, dug into cabinets and drawers, and examined all closets trying to locate the source of that odd smell.

When I stubbed my big toe my eyes caught something peculiar in the floor vent. How on earth did a piece of old onion get in the bedroom vent? I threw it in the garbage and glanced at the vent in the kitchen. Then in the den. Then in the bathroom. Every one of those metal vents had a piece of raw onion forced into it.

I immediately knew the real culprit: Buddy the Gullible.

A few weeks ago he read me an Internet article about the therapeutic value of onions. One variance of the theory says that if you cut off both ends of an onion and put it in a jar next to a sick person, the onion would turn black by drawing bacteria and viruses from the air.

It is true that in 1919, 40 million people died from a flu epidemic. Supposedly a doctor came upon a farmer whose household was entirely healthy. The difference was that the wife had placed a peeled onion in a dish in every room. The doctor placed the onion under a microscope and found the flu virus in the onion which allegedly absorbed the bacteria.

A more recent story told about an Arizona hairdresser who, in the midst of a flu epidemic, hung raw onion around her shop. None of her staff got sick.

Buddy knew I would never let raw onion sit around the house. What would the neighbors think? I checked it out on Snopes, the Internet verifier of such tales that go viral. You can read the lengthy response too if you want to know even more.

The Snopes article ends with this pontifical statement: “If you choose to place a few onions around your home, the downside would be that your nearest and dearest will regard you as somewhat eccentric.”

Need I say more?

nancyk@windstream.net